There’s the burr that relies on brittle prickers,
the cheat grass with sharp and spiky barbs,
and then there’s the milkweed
that attaches its seeds to gossamer fluff
and spills forth in an ecstasy of diaphanous floss,
white puffs of wish-downy, dream-gauzy,
breeze-easy lushness. Oh, heart,
this, too, is what survival looks like—
an almost impossible softness
that gathers light in silky froth,
that entrusts itself to the wind.